Faber snaps up McIntosh's 'seminal' chronicle of Black British cultural history

Faber has seized A Revolutionary Consciousness: Black Britain, Black Power and the Caribbean Artists Movement by Professor Malachi McIntosh. 

Editor Ella Griffiths acquired UK & Commonwealth rights from Nicola Chang at David Higham Associates. It is slated for publication in spring 2027.

The synopsis states: "When the post-"Windrush" Caribbean literary "boom" — which launched a whole generation of writers such as V S Naipaul, Sam Selvon and Derek Walcott — went bust, three extraordinary men birthed a radical new movement."

"In this revelatory portrait, McIntosh shows how John La Rose, Edward Kamau Brathwaite and Andrew Salkey united a community of novelists, poets, artists, dancers and activists against a hostile backdrop of race riots and the 1962 Immigration Act — catalysing new visions of Black British identities that culminated in the Black People’s Day of Action in 1981."

McIntosh is a writer, academic and editor. He is currently associate professor of world literatures in English at Oxford, researching Caribbean and Black British writing. He was previously editor and publishing director of Wasafiri magazine and co-led the Runnymede Trust’s award-winning Our Migration Story project. He hosts literature podcast Craft and is also a prize-winning alumnus of UEA’s Masters in Creative Writing.

"I am absolutely over the moon to be working on this project and to see it published by Faber," he said. "The three central figures in this book should be known by everyone interested in post-war literature and activism. I am committed to opening up their writing and their organising to new readers."

Griffiths said: "I have long wanted to read this book and can’t think of a more impressive and passionate chronicler of this revolutionary movement than Malachi. From life-changing ocean voyages to dramatic encounters in BBC corridors to all-night activist meetings in smoky Bloomsbury bedsits, A Revolutionary Consciousness will bring this fascinating scene to life, forging an alternative British cultural history.

"I can’t wait to see what archival riches and lost stories Malachi unearths, and Faber is honoured to be publishing his work."

Chang added: "I’m delighted that Malachi McIntosh’s vital, enriching group biography of an important, if extremely underexplored, part of British literary history has found a home with Ella Griffiths and Faber, which I know will publish it with ambition and skill. This is a book that I want and need to read and I cannot think of a better editor-author partnership for this seminal work."